Eaton superintendent says some things were not handled right in student knife arrest

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Randy Miller, Eaton Re-2 School District superintendent, said his district will learn from the mistakes made when a 13-year-old was arrested last week for bringing a knife to school.

Circumstances surrounding the arrest of an Eaton Middle School student who brought a knife to school and made threats against at least one person in the building prompted Miller to send a robo-call to everyone in the district on Saturday.

“There were just so many rumors and misunderstandings that I felt I had to call everyone and apologize,” Miller said Sunday. “I wanted to be sure they all knew the facts.”

Miller said there was no lockdown, no bomb and the situation took about 20 minutes to diffuse.

“This made us look at how things could be handled differently,” he said. “The middle school probably hasn’t practiced a lockdown drill as much as we should, so they probably don’t really know what a true lockdown is.”

Miller said teachers were asked to keep students in their rooms for a bit while police checked lockers in the school. However, parents reported being told by their children the school was in lockdown to look for a bomb.

Eaton Police Chief Art Mueller said the teen was arrested for possession of a lethal weapon and placed into custody at the juvenile detention facility. There is no update as to his whereabouts as of Sunday.

He was charged with one count of felony unlawful possession of a weapon on school grounds and a separate count of interfering with staff, faculty or students of an educational facility. Mueller said the case was still under investigation and he was not ready to release the exact type of weapon the teen had.

Miller said the decision to cancel a dance planned for that night was made too late, and likely should have gone on as scheduled.

“Teachers and the principal met and decided to cancel it, but it was 4 p.m. at that point and probably too late,” he said. “I wasn’t part of the conversation, but I think they still thought there were threats being made.”

The entire ordeal was handled by the school resource officer and Eaton police in 20 minutes and no one was at risk after that. A robocall that was sent at 4:30 p.m. informing parents of the decision to cancel the dance did not make it to everyone. A subsequent one did not go out until after 7 p.m.

Miller said when school resumes after winter break, he will get with principals and discuss changes to how situations like this are handled in the future.